When the car crashes, the two felons overpower and kidnap Slide, holding him hostage in a slow-moving caravan, eventually including reporters in news vans and helicopters. The Poplins and their captive travel through Beaumont, Dayton, Houston, Cleveland, Conroe and finally Wheelock, Texas. By holding Slide hostage, the pair are able to continually gas up their car, get food via the drive-through, and stay at motels. Eventually, Slide and the pair bond and have mutual respect for one another.

The Poplins bring Slide to the home of the foster parents, where they encounter numerous officers, including the DPS Captain who has been pursuing them, Captain Harlin Tanner (Ben Johnson). A pair of Texas Rangers shoot and kill Clovis and the Texas Department of Public Safety arrests Lou Jean. Patrolman Slide is found unharmed. Lou Jean spends fifteen months of a five-year prison term in a women's correctional facility.

Production[edit]

Film characters Lou Jean Poplin and Clovis Michael Poplin are based on the lives of Ila Fae Holiday and Robert Dent, respectively. The character Patrolman Slide is based on Trooper J. Kenneth Crone.

In real life, Ila Fae Holiday did not break Robert Dent out of prison. Dent had been released from prison two weeks before the slow-motion car chase began.[2]

Steven Spielberg persuaded co-producers Richard Zanuck and David Brown to let him make his big-screen directorial debut with this true story. A year later, Spielberg's next project for Zanuck and Brown was 1975's blockbuster hit Jaws.